


against all evidence to the contrary, not an essay on the care and feeding of templars

by Artemis1000



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - In Your Heart Shall Burn, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fear of loss, Mage-Templar Dynamics (Dragon Age), Mutual Pining, reluctant romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-10-14 03:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20594084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: Knowing what she knew about her love for all creatures dangerous and widely feared, hindsight told Minaeve she really should have seen it coming. If she was going to fall in love at all, it figured she would fall for the people counterpart of a poisonous giant spider.Knowing what she knew about herself, Minaeve still couldn’t explain how or when exactly she had fallen for Ser Lysette. Nor did she know what to do about Ser Lysette or her feelings for her, which was just her luck, really. She would have been better off sticking to giant spiders.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dawnstone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnstone/gifts).

Knowing what she knew about her love for all creatures dangerous and widely feared, hindsight told Minaeve she really should have seen it coming. If she was going to fall in love at all, it figured she would fall for the people counterpart of a poisonous giant spider.

Knowing what she knew about herself, Minaeve still couldn’t explain how or when exactly she had fallen for Ser Lysette. Nor did she know what to do about Ser Lysette or her feelings for her, which was just her luck, really. She would have been better off sticking to giant spiders.

Minaeve liked to think that if she had known Ser Lysette was a former Templar when she first met her, she would have made smarter choices such as staying away from her. It was a nice thought, albeit an unrealistic one. They had met forced together by circumstances when Lysette accompanied her on a field trip to harvest poison glands of said much-cited giant spiders.

Her arms had looked very nice when she was fighting to protect Minaeve. Everything about her looked very nice all the time, really, even when she had spiderwebs and cave dirt sticking to her hair, and that realization should have clued Minaeve in to the danger if nothing else did.

Giant spiders had never given her half as much trouble as certain former Templars. Trust them to be troublesome to mages even when they weren’t doing anything wrong, strictly speaking.

Minaeve sighed, feeling very put out with herself as she lingered at the edge of Haven’s training field and watched Ser Lysette spar with her friend Ser Mattrin, and then she felt a little more put out with herself because this was the third time this week and no self-respecting mage would let herself grow this used to the hustle and bustle of the training fields. One of these days she was going to get herself caught up in a Smite and she would have nobody but herself to blame.

Minaeve liked Circles but she was still a mage with a sensible head on her shoulders. Templars, like poisonous spiders, were best appreciated from a safe distance.

“Hey. I didn’t see you there.” Done with this bout of sparring, Lysette walked up to her, a smile lighting up her sweat-slick face. She had her sword swung over her shoulder, her shield held in her other hand, looking every bit as dashing as the day she saved Minaeve from a not-as-abandoned-as-assumed spider cave.

Minaeve caught herself in the midst of letting her eyes wander appreciatively over Lysette’s armored form, and in the midst of wondering what she would look like without the armor. She gulped. This did not count as a safe distance, though she was certainly appreciating the view.

“I only just arrived,” she explained, very much feeling a need to explain herself though Lysette didn’t seem to mind her presence. More like, she looked pleased by it, though that could have been Minaeve’s wishful thinking. “I mean. I was passing through.” She looked around. “On my way to the stables. The Mages’ Collective sent the Inquisitor a skeleton horse and I’m to make sure she’s safe to ride.”

Lysette’s brows furrowed, her facial muscles working as she struggled through a whole slew of emotions, most of which didn’t look enthusiastic at all. “That sounds… great,” she finished weakly.

“Do you want to come? The stablehands have taken to calling her Skinny and she can’t eat apples but she likes it when you sing for her.”

Lysette looked back towards the training battles and Ser Mattrin, who was talking to some other former Templars – Minaeve knew this because they had made a big fuss about a mage spying on them the first time she had visited Lysette in the camp in front of Haven’s walls. Lysette had been just as quick to take her side then as in the spider cave.

She shrugged and let her eyes linger on Minaeve’s face, her lips curved into a little smile that made something in Minaeve’s belly do alarmingly acrobatic flip flops.

“I might as well. Mattrin needs a break from getting his ass kicked.” She wrinkled her nose. “And that skeleton horse must be possessed. You shouldn’t be seeing to it alone.” Her face hardened as they walked, the charming smile replaced by an expression Minaeve knew from the field, where Lysette was all business. “Nobody should be seeing to it alone. It ought to be isolated and put under Templar guard if the Herald insists we keep it.”

Minaeve thought of arguing Skinny’s harmlessness but for all that Lysette had the most enchanting smile, she was what she was. “I would be disappointed if a Templar didn’t think of the dangers first,” she offered in compromise and then, because she was also what she was, added anyway, “but Skinny’s still a marvel, not just the danger you see in her.”

For all that she was what she was, Lysette was so much more than that.

Minaeve was reminded of this once more as she watched the woman she adored tentatively pet the Bog Unicorn’s skeleton face, daring to do so for no other reason than that Minaeve had promised her it would be safe.

While Lysette kept the spirit-possessed horse distracted, Minaeve checked on the damage to the bone structure where she had been stabbed with the sword that was still stuck in her head. With Lysette to keep the creature standing still, the exam was far faster work than it would have been for Minaeve alone.

“And unlike most of my live specimens, she didn’t try to take a bite out of me even once,” Minaeve noted in amusement when she stepped back, after giving the not-horse a friendly pat on her bony flank.

“I wouldn’t call her a _live_ specimen, as such,” Lysette pointed out, a quirk to her lips.

“But she’s still a marvel.”

Lysette didn’t argue and if anything, Minaeve felt herself fall even deeper, more hopelessly in love.

This was what happened if you didn’t stick to the study of giant spiders.

When Minaeve told people that she wanted no part in a world where mages had to survive without the protection of Circles and Templars, most of her fellow mages assumed she had blinded herself to the ugly realities of life under these. They couldn’t have been more wrong; she simply knew that living without them was even more dangerous than living with them, but Minaeve had better things to do than argue with people who had already made up their mind about her – for the most part, she had better things to do than interact with people at all, and she was never shy to tell them so.

In the eyes of most mages in Haven, it would have been the most unsurprising thing for loyalist Minaeve to fall for a Templar.

For Minaeve, it was very much a surprising thing, and not least because she could hardly ever be bothered to enjoy the company of anyone who wasn’t Tranquil or covered in fur. She had yet to decide if she was more surprised by the people or by the Templar thing.

What very few people realized was the other, most important reason why Minaeve was discomfited by the thought of ever letting Lysette know of her feelings: Lysette was a Templar, yes. That didn’t just mean that no matter how idealistic, she had been part of an organization where the bad ones hurt mages like Minaeve while the good ones looked away, it also meant Lysette was a _Templar_. Fighting demons. Fighting evil mages. It was her job to place herself in the way of attacks no regular human being should be able to survive and she didn’t even have the measly bit of magic that Minaeve possessed.

Minaeve had rarely been as terrified as the day she went to the training field to see Lysette and was informed by another soldier that she was in the field, holding the fort at a nearby rift until the Herald could be recalled from the Hinterlands.

It was then that Minaeve knew it could never be, even if all other obstacles could be overcome. She would never be able to overcome herself.

It may be terribly selfish, yet there was a little part of Minaeve that was relieved to learn the Herald had recruited an army of Templars to close the Breach. It was for no other reason than that this decision might save Lysette’s life.

With a whole army of soldiers with the same powers she had, maybe Lysette wouldn’t be thrown at every demon and blood mage until she was a worn-out, battle-scarred, lyrium-soaked shadow of herself like the Lysette in Minaeve’s nightmares.

So she scrounged together what silver she had saved and bought a new-to-her robe from Seggrit for the victory party, and when the music started, she danced and let herself wonder, _what if…_?

Releasing Seggrit’s arm after the second dance they had shared, she found herself all but stumbling right into the woman her thoughts kept returning to.

Lysette wore her usual lion-chested armor but she smiled brightly when she caught sight of Minaeve and the first words out of her mouth were, “You look nice. Is that robe new?”

Her eyes lingered on the low cut of the dress, all but caressing the shape of Lysette’s body. Unlike Minaeve’s everyday sensible winter robe, this Tevinter-style robe left little to the imagination.

Minaeve flushed under her scrutiny, hands smoothing over her hips though the robe was far too tight to need any smoothing. She settled on smoothing her feather pauldrons instead. “Do you like it?”

“It suits you.”

“Thank you.” She eyed Lysette for a moment. “This suits you, too,” she said, pointing her chin at the armor Lysette wore, the lion head where the Sword of Mercy used to be.

The knight looked confused. “It’s just my everyday armor.”

“I know.”

A new song started and Minaeve’s eyes wandered to the night sky, which no longer glowed Fade green.

Maybe not tomorrow but soon after people would start to leave. Maybe Lysette would leave with the Templars from Therinfal. She had never figured out how to ask. They were friends but it would be awkward for her to ask what Lysette planned to do with her future, with everything that stood between Templars and mages, with the war still going on outside the safe little bubble of the Inquisition. It was far too easy for innocent curiosity to come across as accusation and Minaeve had never been all that good with people at the best of times.

“Would you like to dance?” she asked instead.

Lysette bit down on her bottom lip, she looked like she was fighting a minor battle with herself. Then she nodded and offered her arm.

It was only when they were dancing that Minaeve realized she had asked Lysette to dance with her to the tune of Enchanters. She really should have stuck to the study of giant spiders.

It was hard to find the right words to describe why she liked Lysette. It was in the way she made her feel, steady and calm, and in the way it felt like nothing could touch her with Lysette as her shield. It was also in the way Lysette made her laugh and tonight, she learned, in the way she was absolutely atrocious at dancing but insisted to keep trying anyway.

“My feet feel like a druffalo stomped all over them,” Minaeve announced, tugging at Lysette’s arm to pull her away from the dancing area. “You owe me a drink. Maybe even two.”

There was a charming flush to Lysette’s cheeks and she didn’t make a move to unhook her arm from Minaeve’s. “If that is so, I will comply.”

Lysette bought them large mugs of frothy ale. “It’s from Denerim like I am,” she said, taking a sip as they found a quiet place to sit under a tree.

It was nice here, they could hear the music well and watch the dancing but still had a sense of privacy. The log they sat on was wide enough but Minaeve sat close to Lysette’s side anyway.

Minaeve eyed her thoughtfully. It looked like they would be having this conversation now, or some manner of it anyway. She smiled and clasped her mug with both hands, feeling strangely excited instead of anxious as she would have expected.

“I don’t know a lot about you,” she said. She knew what she needed to know, that Lysette treated her as a person and not just a dangerous weapon or an abomination to be. This didn’t mean she didn’t crave to learn more.

“There isn’t much to know. I was born in Denerim as a cobbler’s daughter. I wanted to be a knight ever since I was a little girl but my family could have never afforded for me to be a squire.” She lifted her chin, a hint of proud defensiveness glinting in her eyes. “And I wanted to be a Templar. I believe in what we do… are supposed to do, anyway,” she added, less confident now. A frown flickered over her face, giving Minaeve an irrational urge to smooth it away. “Our work is important and when it is done right, it is just.” She shrugged a little, still frowning. “But I know there hasn’t been much justice, all the more so in the last couple of years.”

Nothing that Lysette said came as a surprise yet Minaeve still felt a tangible sense of relief to have her assumptions confirmed. It was more than she would have dared hope for, even. She had assumed Lysette didn’t hate mages but she had only hoped that she wasn’t willfully blind to the faults of her Order, though so many of the better Templars were.

“In the right hands, it is an admirable calling,” she said, enjoying the relief that chased away Lysette’s frown. It felt nice to know she was the one who could make Lysette stop frowning, it left behind a feeling of warmth not unlike the ale.

“Hopefully there will be more right hands in the future. That’s what I’m fighting for. That we do better. The Inquisition is a start but it has to be turned into something lasting.”

Minaeve nodded, saying, “I like it here. We are free to research and use our magic to make a difference for the world, but we are protected, too. Protected by the soldiers,” she smoothed over the skirt of her robe, “and from them, too. If I could go to a Circle that is like the Inquisition I would be happy.”

“Hossberg,” Lysette said decisively. “They work with the Wardens.”

“But couldn’t all Circles be like that?” She took a sip from her ale, at the back of her mind wondering what she was even thinking to be arguing Circle politics with the Templar she had a crush on when she could do something truly outrageous instead such as having fun for once. Too bad she had never been good at keeping quiet about her opinions, even the unpopular ones. “Shouldn’t all Circles have magic serve man? I don’t want mages out there without protection but I don’t want to be just stored away safely either.” She leaned even closer in her excitement. “I like being useful! It feels wonderful every time someone returns from the field and tells me that a discovery I made saved lives!”

Lysette looked taken aback for a moment, then thoughtful. Finally, she nodded. “I like it, too, how it is here.”

“Just imagine, we could study dragons together!” Minaeve blurted out and then snapped her mouth shut suddenly when she realized what she had said. What she had assumed. Just because she liked to imagine Lysette and she would go to the same Circle and that they could still be friends in whatever future would come about didn’t mean Lysette would want that, too. She felt a blush begin at the tips of her ears and spread quickly. She smoothed her hands over her skirt. “Or… Never mind.”

“There are dragons in the Hissing Wastes, are there not?” Lysette’s voice sounded far too soft, gentle even, for someone speaking only of dragons. “Or was it the Western Approach? Somewhere sandy in Orlais, anyway, I remember that much for sure.”

More than anything, Minaeve wished at this moment that she was less herself and more someone else – someone who would be brave enough to cross what distance remained and kiss Lysette. Yet even as she thought of it, she thought of rejection and all she stood to lose once she gained something, and so she did what she usually did which was nothing at all.

“There are,” she said weakly. “Dragons. Scientists from Orlais are currently doing a field study on rare species of dragons in the Western Approach, such as the Abyssal High Dragon.” The words felt clumsy on her tongue and when she looked at Lysette, she thought she saw disappointment but she couldn’t say if it was real or her own wishful thinking.

They emptied their glasses in a somber mood before Lysette pulled her back into dancing.

She still wanted to dance with her, it had to be relief enough for Minaeve, and over Fereldan dances, the strange mood passed to make way for good cheer once more.

She still didn’t know how to ask Lysette if she would stay or leave. No longer because she feared to cause offense but simply because she didn’t want this evening ruined. Tomorrow, she promised herself, tomorrow she would ask and maybe even ask her to stay if Lysette hadn’t promised herself to some greater cause yet.

The Commander’s yell ripped them out of the middle of a dance.

It was like being thrown into a nightmare, cheerful people who had been celebrating moments ago running for the gates or scrambling to fetch their weapons, yells everywhere while fear and confusion spread among the partygoers.

Adan was suddenly at Minaeve’s side, grabbing her by the arm. “Minaeve! There will be injuries. You’ve got to help me get my potions!”

Lysette was squeezing her other arm, demanding her attention. “I have to go!” she yelled. “Stay safe!”

Minaeve had no time to respond before Lysette was swept away in the armored crowd and she was dragged the other way by Adan.

There was no time to think at all anymore then, just running and following Adan’s orders. Lyrium, healing and regeneration potions first, as many as were left after the closing of the Breach, then everything else that might give their troops an edge.

When they dashed out of the alchemist’s hut each carrying two large bags full of clinking potions bottles, a group of people was already storming up the steps to the small cluster of huts.

Minaeve’s eyes widened in alarm, her mouth opening to shout a warning or call for help but before she could even decide on a sound to make, a Force spell slammed into her, smashing her onto the ground.

She tried to get up from the ground and barely managed to scramble to her knees but that was enough to raise her hands and call up what magic she had, shaping it into fire.

She would go down. She was no Fiona or Vivienne, there was no way she could stand against three enemy mages without even a staff – but she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Minaeve’s fire spell slammed into a barrier but a bottle of acid Adan had thrown got through while they were focused on her. She scrambled to her feet, taking grim satisfaction in the yells of pain and called up more fire.


	2. Chapter 2

Lysette fell easily into the rhythm that had dominated her training. Focus and cast. Take up your sword. Focus and cast. Take up your sword.

Yet there was no end to their enemies, two more taking the place of every mage that had been stripped of their powers and unlike them, she had to be careful not to rob the Inquisition’s own mages of their abilities. In the chaos of Haven overrun, conventional rules of battle such as mages staying out of melee range had long since been abandoned.

Having just been saved by the Herald from a tight spot herself, the repetition left far too much time to wonder. To worry. If she had nearly been overwhelmed, then how badly would Minaeve be faring? A mage without battle experience, she ought to be hiding – but there was no way Minaeve would be hiding. For a mage so vocal about wanting to live behind a wall of Templar shields, she was terrible at keeping herself out of trouble.

A twirl of her sword to enrage, a quick parry and her sword aimed true, finding a gap in the armor of an enemy fighter. She waited only to make sure he was down for good before searching for Mattrin. “I need to find Minaeve!” she called to him. “I’ll meet you at the Chantry!”

Her friend wiped sweat from his brow and huffed. “Go. It’s not like I can stop you. Just don’t get yourself killed protecting her.”

“Right.” She rolled her eyes. “Maker forbid I get myself killed doing my job.”

“Minaeve!”

Lysette dropped to her knees at Minaeve’s side, shucking off her gauntlets to check the elf for injuries. Her face was battered, her left arm and foot twisted at a worrisome angle – the pattern of it all speaking of Force magic damage, which could mean internal bleeding - but there were no large bleeding holes in her and that would have to do for now. She most decidedly didn’t let herself think or feel, shoving aside all concern in favor of ensuring their survival.

There were potions bottles scattered all around Minaeve, most of them shattered. After some searching, she found an undamaged healing potion and lifted Minaeve’s head to pour it down her throat, careful not to choke her.

Even for an elf, her weight felt too slight in Lysette’s arms, too fragile. Shouldn’t unconscious people feel heavy? Minaeve, though, she just felt far too breakable.

Minaeve came to groaning and sputtering. “Adan!” Her eyes were as frantic as her voice; she seemed to take no notice of who was helping her just that someone was. “You have to help Adan!”

Lysette grasped her shoulders to keep her from moving too quickly and hurting herself. “I’ll check on him. Careful now.” Lysette’s hands lingered for a moment longer and she looked her over another time, needing the reassurance though she knew there would be nothing else she could do even if she discovered more injuries.

But to find her lying unconscious right in front of Adan’s burning hut, the shock of it was still lingering.

“Lysette, please!”

“Of course.” She shook off these dark thoughts and moved over to Adan. He was laying nearby, she shook him awake and poured another healing potion down his throat. As she did so, her eyes kept returning to the hut. The fire was spreading quickly.

“I know you’re still weak but we have to get out of here,” she said firmly. “I’ll take you to the Chantry.”

“Yes, but we need the potions!” Adan snapped. He was picking himself up from the floor, impatiently brushing aside Lysette’s attempts to help. “Don’t fuss over me, help me get the potions!”

It was a scramble of collecting the undamaged bottles and then even more of a scramble for one of Lysette to get two injured people to the Chantry. Adan could walk on his own, albeit slowly, but Minaeve clung to her with her good arm as she hobbled along.

She should have been protesting, maybe, should have wanted to be unhindered to hold both sword and shield, but having Minaeve’s slight but solid weight against her side gave Lysette more reassurance than her shield ever could.

“You’ll be okay,” she murmured, “you just have to make it to the Chantry and there you can rest. It’s solid stone and easy to defend. There might be healers, too.” She tightened her hold on Minaeve when she stumbled, pulling the elf tightly against her and for a moment, just letting herself hold on to her, not even prodding her to keep moving. “What did you do anyway?” Her voice was quiet, the words all but murmured into Minaeve’s hair. It smelled of smoke and elfroot. “Did you try to take them on all by yourself?”

Minaeve gave a little laugh that cut off in a strangled yelp before she forced it down into a mere hiss of pain. “Something like that.”

She exhaled slowly and let herself cling to Minaeve for another moment. “I shouldn’t have left you alone. You could be dead!”

It was a thought too terrible to contemplate, one that made her stomach churn with dread as unbidden, she saw herself finding a Minaeve cold and lifeless, her body shattered beyond repair by Force magic that had in their kinder reality only knocked her out.

“Let’s keep going,” Lysette said, her voice still a little shaky.

Minaeve gave her the sweetest little smile even through all the pain written on her battered face and Lysette’s heart did that stupid little fluttery thing that kept catching her off guard time and again.

If they made it through this night alright, she promised herself, then she would… Well, chances were, she would do nothing. Haven was no Circle but Minaeve was still a mage and she had her Templar past. Yet it would be a lot harder to convince herself to keep doing nothing.

Before she could think on it further, there was a yell of, “dragon!” and all thoughts of tomorrow were forgotten in favor of surviving tonight.

Out of all things, a hidden path in the mountains turned out to be their salvation.

“I know it’s slow going but the scouts said it’s just a little further until the path gets easier. It is fortuitous that Chancellor Roderick can guide us,” Lysette said, speaking more to herself than to Minaeve to whose side she had returned once more, “Andraste truly walks with us.”

It was her duty to guard the fleeing caravan, to offer sword and shield, and when her more martial skills were not needed a strong shoulder to lean on. Yet as they fought the snow and the cold and their own despair, she kept being drawn back to Minaeve’s side time and again, like a moth to a flame. No, not like a moth to a flame, she chided herself, frowning at the thought. That was a very Templar way of thinking, and it was unkind. Minaeve was not something dangerous to lure her in and burn her if she got too close.

Minaeve gave her a wan little smile but a smile nevertheless. “I don’t know about Andraste but I sure hope you’re right about walking getting easier soon.” She hugged herself, stubbornly plodding on through knee-high snow.

Lysette checked her over again, as she had done every time she returned to Minaeve’s side. She had been healed up at the Chantry so she could walk without help but she ought to be keeping bedrest, not climbing the Frostback Mountains for dear life. Her face was pale and waxen, her lips tinged with blue. Lysette itched to shelter her from it all yet there was no shelter to be found. “It will be,” she promised, hoping she wouldn’t be proven a liar. “Take heart.”

Minaeve’s eyes found hers. “I do.” Her fingers brushed against Lysette’s. “I’m not alone this time.”

If Minaeve was any kind of flame, Lysette decided, then she was the campfire awaiting your return with a promise of comfort and warmth.

They made camp high in the mountains while they all waited for the Herald to awaken – again.

Minaeve couldn’t be found at any of the fires the other mages had gathered around, nor at any of the other campfires Lysette searched afterward.

She was half frantic by the time she found her sitting all alone on a rock outcropping overlooking a deep chasm, legs tucked close to her chest and cloak wrapped around her to provide heartily little protection against the icy winds tearing at her.

The moment Lysette saw her, she found herself overcome by queasiness, ill at ease with this profound sense of importance she felt about her decision to stay or leave. Her gauntleted hands clenched and unclenched at her sides, her eyes strayed back to the camp and the company of her fellow soldiers awaiting her. Theirs would be uncomplicated company. Minaeve looked like someone who was all fresh out of uncomplicated.

Lysette walked the narrow path leading to Minaeve’s perch, quite the feat in heavy armor and sans an elf’s natural grace. She sat next to her, determinedly not looking down into the churning white nothing. She had never been fond of heights.

She kept her face hidden against her knees. When Lysette placed a hand on her back, she found her trembling ever so slightly. The shaking grew stronger under her touch, jerking motions soon accompanied by the sound of stifled sobs.

“Minaeve…” Her name was a plea, though Lysette wasn’t quite sure what she pleaded for. Maybe for answers, for guidance; she sorely needed both.

She finally raised her head. Her face was tear-streaked, her eyes red.

Lysette’s breath caught in her throat. She gritted her teeth against the helplessness welling up in her, more of this acute feeling of uselessness that had haunted her ever since Haven fell. All her training and vows, what were they worth when she couldn’t defend what mattered to her? When she couldn’t even protect a single person from misery, as it turned out.

“It’s gone,” she whispered hoarsely. “It’s all gone. That’s the third time I’ve lost my home and I’m so _tired_ of losing everything.”

Before she could ponder if it was wise or even appropriate, Lysette was reaching for Minaeve’s hands. She cradled them in her own and Minaeve didn’t complain, she held on as tightly as Lysette did though the cold metal of her gauntlets couldn’t have been pleasant to cling to. “You lost a place,” she said, trying to push through her own dismay to put strength into her voice. She huddled closer to Minaeve, seeking her warmth. “You didn’t lose the people.”

“He has a dragon!” Minaeve shot back. “And they say he is one of the Seven who started the Blight!”

“He may be an ancient magister but at the end of the day he’s just a mage,” Lysette replied briskly, which was the pep talk they were giving at the Templar campfires and it was only when the words were spoken that she realized this may not be half as comforting to a mage. She winced but Minaeve didn’t seem to take offense, or at least she didn’t yank her hands away.

What she did do was keep wearing that frown that managed to be both impatient and mournful at once. “That’s the problem! And did you see the army he commands? There are so many mages amongst them…” She turned her face away. Lysette could see her throat work as she gulped. “You will have to be on the front line.” Her voice shook. “They’re going to send you out first into every battle and I…!”

Lysette cut her off with a kiss.

It was all instinct, the kind of instinct that kept her alive on the battlefield, but this was no battlefield and so she was frozen the moment her brain caught up, her lips against Minaeve’s and her belly twisted into a tight knot of fear at her own reckless courage.

Minaeve’s lips weren’t soft under hers, they were cold and chapped just like Lysette’s and then they were suddenly pressing closer and a hot tongue slipped into her mouth, chasing away both the cold and the dread.

Life returned to Lysette with a snap, kissing back as passionately as Minaeve kissed her. She released her hands to wrap an arm around her shoulders once more and draw her as close as could be, and Minaeve’s fingers curled into her hair. She tasted of the stew shared earlier in camp and the herbal tea Adan fed them all, a bitter concoction that left your tongue feeling fuzzy but warmed you up like nothing else.

It wasn’t romantic, as far as first kisses went. They could still all starve or freeze to death, wandering here in the mountains above Haven. But Minaeve was a mage and Lysette had given Templar vows, nothing they could have would ever be easy or simple.

Minaeve’s fingers brushed over her cheek, mapping the curve of her cheekbone. “You taste of lyrium,” she whispered, her nose bumping Lysette’s.

“You taste of Adan’s tea.”

Minaeve’s lips found hers again. This kiss lingered, sweet and exploring.

“I’m scared.” Minaeve rested her forehead against Lysette’s. She sighed. “I’ve always been scared. But I never had as much to lose as I have now.”

“You’re stronger than you think. You survived out there in the middle of the war and protected others. You go out time and again to study animals other people run away from.”

Minaeve pulled back enough to scrutinize her. “So. Are you saying I don’t need your protection?” There was a smile in her voice, though it didn’t show on her face.

A startled laugh escaped Lysette. “How about we protect another?”

She gave a small nod, the smile started to show on her lips. “I would like that.” Minaeve leaned against Lysette, an arm snaking around her waist while her other hand found Lysette’s again.

The background noise from the camp grew louder, drowning out the whistling of the wind and Lysette’s confused frown returned when she realized it was…

“Are they _singing_?” Minaeve asked for both of them.

They looked at another, equally startled, and laughed. Lysette couldn’t even say who laughed first but soon they were both laughing and it felt so good, like something that had been wound too tight within her was being released.

Lysette squeezed her hand and stood up. “Come on. Let’s go praise the Maker… and find out what is happening.”

Minaeve grasped her hand when Lysette offered, permitting her to help her to her feet though she moved with nimble elven grace after her rest, clearly needing no help. She accepted it anyway and didn’t release Lysette’s hand.

Lysette held on tight, quietly marveling at the way Minaeve’s hand in her own grounded her in reality more firmly than all her abilities could have.


End file.
